European Vacation - VENICE

On Thursday, June 9, Mac and I took off on a high-speed train for Venice for 2 days there before we left on our cruise. What is a 6+-hour trip via the regular train is a 3-hour trip via high-speed rail. It was a no-brainer when traveling with a 7 year-old.
There are always lessons we learn when traveling. The one I learned on this train trip was one that I knew I was going to learn the hard way. Our suitcases were just too big to be manageable for Europe. Honestly the next time I go to Europe, I'm taking 2 outfits and a lot of laundry detergent. Will you remind me of this declaration when the time comes? This very nice older Italian man who was traveling with his wife, his mother and some other old woman (I couldn't figure out that relationship no matter how much I eavesdropped on their Italian conversation) helped me get one duffle up on the luggage rack and the other one under our feet. (As a side note, this guy was immaculately dressed and coiffed, handsome, all pressed and not sweaty - the perfect specimen of older Italian man. Mac and I were seated across from each other with a table between us and the old Italian nonnas sitting by us. I don't speak Italian so I couldn't understand everything they were saying, but they did say "mamma mia" a lot in their conversation, which endeared them to me forever.

Let me just tell you that the Italians have it going on with first class rail travel. (And I will only do first class train travel after some of the traumatic and less-than-first-class train trips Jimmy made me do in Peru.) Once the train took off promptly at the scheduled time, a nice man came through and gave me an English-language newspaper. Then a lady came through to hand out juice. Then she came through later to hand out amaretto cookies. Food and a paper? Completely worth the price of admission.

We arrived in Venice and it was everything you think of when Venice comes to mind. Water, water, water. The train station dumps you right out on the Grand Canal. We bought our boat bus tickets and away we went to find our apartment. Mac on the vaporetto (the public boat bus transportation system)

Imagine a regular town with regular streets and then in your mind, turn all those streets to water. There are no cars, just boats. Laundry boats, construction boats, garbage boats, DHL boats, taxi boats, bus boats, etc. Anything that requires a car or truck in a regular town has a boat equivalent in Venice. It was all pretty surreal to me, but it's a great city for wandering, getting lost and finding yourself again.
one of a million beautiful canals

Of course, the big highlight of Venice was our reunion with Jimmy. Mac made us get to the boat stop more than an hour before we knew Jimmy could possibly get there from the airport. That's a lot of waiting time, but Mac refused to leave. waiting, waiting, waiting for Daddy
The Grand Canal
On our one full day in Venice before the cruise, the public boat transportation workers were on strike, except for rush hour time because they "didn't want to inconvenience people too much." We walked around a bit to see the Rialto Market and the famous Rialto Bridge and then caught a private water taxi over to Murano, the glassmaking island. I have seen photos in People magazine of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in the private water taxis, and I'm pretty sure we looked every bit as glamorous, except without all those kids hanging around. the handsome men in my life in the back of the water taxi

We wandered Murano for hours and had a great tour at a glass factory. If you can't tell from the photo below, it was hot as blue blazes in this factory! Finally, some sweaty Italians!!

Some final photos from Venice -

the sweetest, juiciest peaches known to mankind, bought and eaten on the spot at the Rialto Market

naptime

a sweet little canal
Mac and me